


The Cursed Village (The Demon and The Witch: 1)

by itsidhrenniel



Series: The Demon and The Witch [1]
Category: Grishaverse - Fandom, Shadow and Bone (TV)
Genre: Blood and Violence, Character Death, F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Lovers To Enemies, M/M, Romance, Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-19 01:01:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29742594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsidhrenniel/pseuds/itsidhrenniel
Summary: Every Demon needs his Witch, and when Nadezhda finds The Darkling walking into her humble home, she knows there will be a steep price to pay. At the dawning of a new age for Ravka, darkness threatens to swallow the world as ancient links are broken and new promises are made.
Relationships: Baghra & The Darkling | Aleksander Morozova, The Darkling | Aleksander Morozova / Original Female Characters
Series: The Demon and The Witch [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2185998
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	1. A Midnight Visit

* * *

> **_“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”_ **   
>  **_― Lao Tzu_ **

**L** egends and whispers often lead to the Grisha. If one knows how to look, finding them is not difficult. One has to look at the shadows, see how they move between the walls and in between the trees, shadows that shouldn’t be there but are nonetheless.

Aleksander had followed those whispers, the tales, the rumours of a witch taken down a battalion on her own. A witch that protected a village she had made her home.

But finding the village wasn’t the simple task he had expected it to be. Each town gave a different name, a different kingdom and a different description. In Os Alta, the village was in Shu, near a river with crimson-red water. In Balakirev, it was in Ravka, so deep inside of a forest that it never met the sunlight. Söndermane had given him the answer he wanted, and he was thankful he had left before Ulla’s wrath got rid of it. He had been travelling for a month, soon he will have to meet with his mother. He hoped he could finish his business before that.

At last, he arrived at the place he had been looking for for so long. It was midnight when he began walking through the village, looking for the one house that would belong to her.

He could see curious gazes following him through the windows, he was quick to notice there was no fear in their faces. This didn’t impress him nor surprise him, for it just one of the rumours he had heard were true, the villagers knew there was someone powerful enough to take down their enemies, and so ensure their protection.

Aleksander looked around, taking in the place he had longed to find. It wasn’t something special, nothing but another forgotten Ravkan village in the middle of nowhere. Not inside a forest, not near a river but up a hill, close to heaven, just like she wanted.

A child came outside. She must have not noticed him before, because when she looked up and saw him, she froze; mouth wide open as if she wanted to scream. He chuckled, crouching down to her height and gave her a warm smile. “Hello,” he said.

“Hi. I’m going to the _koldun'ya_ ’s house.”

Aleksander frowns at the term, almost offended. But then he remembers that she was ever fond of the name, never backed down when called it. She took pride in what was supposed to offend her. That is how she was.

“So am I.” Upon his words, the little girl frowned, but gave him a nod and closed the door behind her. She began walking and Aleksander followed her.

The girl couldn’t be older than six; he wondered what a kid her age was doing out so late. It didn’t matter how safe the village was, there were other dangers that no one could prevent. Like a stranger walking at night, or an erratic witch letting her rage consume her.

The walk to her house was longer than he anticipated, as her house was farther from the heart of the village, secluded in the highest part of the hill.

Aleksander raised his fist to knock. One strong knock came upon the old wooden door. It opened a second later, a woman dressed in a velvet gown of crimson shade stood behind it. If someone was to ask, he would never admit it, but his breath got caught in his throat upon the sight of her. She was more beautiful than he remembered.

He had imagined this moment during the long sleepless night he’d spent searching. But when her voice came, he realized, it sounded nothing like the girl he used to know. Her voice was sharper, holding the venom of a snake, even as she talked to the little girl that seemed to be fond of her. It made him clench his jaw, for the first time in a long time unsure of his plan.

“Little Agnia, what is the matter?”

Agnia replied, but he busied himself in her. He looked her up and down and took notice that her voice wasn’t all that had changed, she didn’t look like the girl he knew, either. Nadezhda had grown, but this was not a surprise. Four decades had passed since the last time he saw her, and in that time she had become something else. She was still shorter than him, her hips wide and her waist thin, imitating an hourglass clock. Her face was now skinnier and he noticed her sharp features had accentuated, her hair now long down to her waist, braided, and black like his. Her feline gaze remained a vibrant shade of sage, however, it also held a darkness he had not seen in her before.

Aleksander is brought back from his thoughts as Agnia returns to the village, holding a book close to her chest and smiling wide enough for it to hurt. Then, he was looking at Nadezhda and she was looking at him, and for a few minutes no words were exchanged between them. The cold air of the approaching winter taking hold of their hands.

A hint of a smile could be seen dancing around her lips, but it never fully bloomed. “It’s far too late in the night to mend a heart, sir.”

Aleksander chuckled, walking past her and entering the comfort of a home that wasn’t his. “You can’t mend what doesn’t exist,” he spoke behind her in a low, rasped voice.

The front door closed behind him as he walked further into the house, sitting on a chair next to the burning fireplace. Aleksander left out a sigh as his limbs warmed up.

Nadezhda sat opposite to him with her legs crossed. She appeared to be emotionless, but he saw right through her facade without issue. He saw the loneliness, the desperation, the realization that she was becoming something she didn’t recognize upon looking in a mirror, and that no matter what she did, she no longer could come back from it. She had made her choices─terrible ones─she had to suffer the consequences.

“What brings The Darkling to a forgotten village? So far from all the comforts that his Little Palace has to offer?” Her tone was insulting, but he took no offense. He knew her well.

“You.” His voice was firm although it let out a lie. It wasn’t her he wanted─at least that’s what he told himself─it was the abilities that had become the terror in a soldier’s heart. Aleksander didn’t tell her that, though, because she didn’t need to know.

Nadezhda let out a humourless laugh, throwing her head back. She took her sweet time to calm down from the worst joke ever spoken. She shook her head, got up from her spot and walked up to him, slow as a snail and sly as a fox. She moved behind him, resting her cold hand on his shoulder. Aleksander felt her warm breath grace his ear as she spoke: “Is the Cut quicker than a heart stopping, Sacha?” The nickname sent shivers up his spine; shivers he repelled for his own good.

Power. Nothing more, nothing less.

“ _Lyubov' moya_ ─Nadia.”

As he had expected, it took her by surprise. She moved back, letting her hand to fall to her side. She didn’t return to her seat, though, she walked to the little kitchen that Aleksander found to be too crowded for his liking.

“What brings you here, Sacha?” She asked again while moving things around, books that he couldn’t make the title of, herbs he recognised, and other things more bloody that he would rather not see in her possession. “The truth this time.”

“It’s the truth, Nadia. I’m here for you.”

Nadezhda turned around, holding a heart in her right hand and a jar in the other. Aleksander didn't bother to notice whether it was human or not. If he had, perhaps he would've ran to her and cradled her face in his hands, kissed her lips and whispered soft words against her. Comfort her, tell her that she was not this person, that the chance of coming back from the monster was still there. But if he had done that, then he too would've had to tell those same things to himself, and the path he knew he was destined to follow would have crumbled. He couldn't allow that and undo what he had achieved so far.

Aleksander looked as she storaged the heart and washed her hands, and once again without a word she turned from him, walking deeper into the house. She stopped at a door, undid her gown and let it fall to the ground. Looking over her shoulder she called him, and as if a man under a spell he rose to his feet.

“Come now, the night is long and cold.”

And he followed. His own clothes falling to the ground as the last flicker of the fire succumbed to its death.


	2. Ancient Link

> > **So much of what is best in us is bound up in our love of family, that it remains the measure of our stability because it measures our sense of loyalty.**
> 
> ** Haniel Long **

* * *

Nadezhda woke up before the sun. She slipped from the bed in silence, leaving both the warmth and the comfort of Aleksander’s arms around her. She put on her crimson robes and, as if still in a dream, walked barefoot through the house picking ingredient after ingredient. The prior night had made her hungry, tired, her legs still trembled under her weight. And yet she still looked over her shoulder with her good eye, wanting more.

She had doubts. Doubts that the man that was now sleeping in her bed wasn’t her beautiful Sacha, who would steal sweets for them to eat hidden behind the trees at their old camp, who summoned his darkness in order to protect her─and had been doing so for a long, long time now.

Sighing, Nadezhda moved to the kitchen and began preparing breakfast, humming an old and forgotten song as she did so. The smell of sweetness covered that of blood and death, in a moment giving her the relief she had been looking for for the entire week.

She was so immersed in cooking that she didn’t notice Aleksander had woken up and walked into the kitchen─and he had done so naked─until he wrapped his arms around her waist from behind. Nadezhda let out a small shout, her left hand grabbing Aleksander’s. His voice was rough from sleep, but if anything it suited him more than his usual tone.

“It smelled too good to remain in bed.”

“Oh?”, she said, turning around to look at him. She tried to smile, but nothing good ever blossomed from her. “You could’ve waited until it was done, Sacha.” He shook his head, then lowered it to kiss her lips. Nadezhda felt the pull of his being through her, each of his bones calling to her powers. She had grown strong enough to fight the urge to use them, but she’d never be strong enough to not succumb to  _ him _ .

Their link was ancient and sealed upon blood. It couldn’t be broken.

Aleksander broke their touch by moving to light up the fireplace in the living room. Nadezhda stared at his back, dreaming of a better time when he wouldn’t have to leave.

But as he knelt to start the fire, his words travelled with the sweetness of breakfast, and as quick as her stomach had opened, it closed again. “Come with me to the Little Palace. The Corporalki could use a good teacher.”

Word after word, lie after lie, his lips seemed to have become poisoned with greed.

Perhaps Nadezhda could find the cure for it somewhere in her kitchen, although upon offering she was sure he would laugh and turn around. Because  _ there is nothing wrong with him, Nadia, this is what he ever was _ , except he wasn’t. She knew he wasn’t.

“No.”

Her voice had come off stronger than she intended, but her determination was still there. She couldn’t abandon her home─a home she had fought and bled for─and travel with him to the capital, just to tutor some children that were too afraid to accept their powers.

“ _ Lyubov' moya _ ,” he arose from his spot but did not walk towards her. “What ties my heart to this place?”

Nadezhda avoided his gaze and shrugged. “I fought for it. I don't want to give it up.”

Aleksander chuckled. Nadezhda saw him pick up his trousers from the floor and put them on. He then slided inside the bedroom to retrieve a velvet pouch. It was crimson red, as her own gowns were, small enough to fit in his fist. She turned off the stove to let the cake cool down as he approached. Nadezhda could feel her right hand fingers tingle as the darkness that he carried with him got closer and closer. A long time had passed since the last time her scars burnt, she had almost forgotten the feeling, but he was ever there to remind her. At least he couldn't see them.  _ Something was something _ .

He put the pouch on the kitchen' table. She opened it to find a pin of an eclipse in it. And for the first time since he saw her, she smiled, then she laughed, and then she threw the pouch to the floor and walked past Aleksander, going to sit on the couch. The fire warmed her up, but not as fast as the rage that grew faster than a dragon's horde.

Nadezhda shook her head. “Why? What is so important there?”

“Our people, Nadia! We have a place we can be safe and be true to our nature, at last.”

“At the cost of bowing to a Ravkan King? Taking children from their parents? What else?” She held his hand. “Fjerdans still hunt us, the Shu open us up while we still draw breath. What has changed,  _ soul of mine _ ?”

Aleksander knelt and kissed her lips, then her nose, then the left side of her face that magic had fixed. He could still feel it, couldn't he? He could see the truth that lay behind her words and actions, and even if she herself couldn't understand how he did it, there was relief in his touch, in his whispers of encouragement, in the words he didn't speak but that she heard through the blood coursing through his veins.

“We have changed. We are powerful like no one else before us.”

_ And no one that shall come after us─if one ever does _ , she thought, touching the amplifier that rested on her wrist. Still, the doubts. Oh, the doubts that danced around her mind and picked at her fears! Cruel little things that refused to disappear.

It wasn’t just abandoning her home, it was also abandoning her people. But then she looked up and saw him, the face that soothed her to sleep, the face that saved her life, the face she still hoped to see reflected in her children… somewhen, somewhen.

Yet she whispered, “Is that enough, Sacha?”

In the dim light of the morning Aleksander's silence filled the house with dread but also a determination that was characteristic of him. As if he had made the decision for her and his touch was nothing but the reminder of it. Nadezhda had lost the choice to choose the moment he stepped into her house because he knew, just as well as her, that she would follow wherever he went; without questions, without doubt, without remorse.

And with one last moment of strength, she let go of him; got up from her seat and let her ice-cold gaze fall upon his pale features. She nodded.

In the dim light of the morning Nadezhda's voice took its rightful place with forbidden words that would condemn her–unbeknownst to her. “Very well then. Let us hope that the Little Palace lives up to my expectations.”

**Author's Note:**

> Vocabulary:  
> Koldun'ya: witch.  
> Lyubov' moya: my love.


End file.
